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I've seen somewhere a test for how many color words are there in the language - only color-words which do not correspond to a specific material or plant which c
by apostlion 13y ago
I've seen somewhere a test for how many color words are there in the language - only color-words which do not correspond to a specific material or plant which color is emulated are accepted. So “red” or “blue” is fine, as is “piros” or “vörös” - but “sky blue” (color of sky), “ruby” (color of the gemstone) or “scarlet” (color of the Scarlet cloth) are not.
- prof_hobart 13y agoSo orange wouldn't be counted as a colour in English? I'm not sure what value there is in measuring the amount of colour names in a language based purely on their etymology.
- apostlion 13y agoOrange wouldn't. By this logic, many oddities in color naming can be abstracted over languages, see for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Universality_and_Evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Univer...
- prof_hobart 13y agoInteresting. Does this hold true for every single language?
- currymesurprise 13y agoAs a correction to my sibling comment, orange _is_ counted as a color in English. The most widely-cited list of colors in English, as seen on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_... for example is that English has eleven basic colors: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, and gray. That page also provides criteria for being considered a basic color term.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago"the Scarlet cloth", what's that? It may have referred to something specific once, but now it's just a colour. There are many examples of things that are just a part of speech now. e.g. when was the last time you had the opportunity to actually "put the cart before the horse" or "strike while the iron is hot".